


to see you again

by enamuko



Series: Casphardt Week [4]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, M/M, Mer!Lin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 07:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21334807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enamuko/pseuds/enamuko
Summary: Caspar is always excited for his family's annual arrival at their beach house, because it means he gets to see Linhardt.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring
Series: Casphardt Week [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535510
Comments: 20
Kudos: 129





	to see you again

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt four for Casphardt week! Today is AU day, so have merperson Linhardt!

They had barely even gotten to the beach house before Caspar was throwing his bags into his room and running out the door, the screen door slamming behind him as he barrelled through it, not paying any attention to his dad yelling after him asking where he thought he was going.

The beach wasn’t exactly nice; his dad always wanted to get to the beach house early in the season before the ‘tourists’ got there, and it had been raining the past couple of days, so all kinds of seaweed and other nasty stuff had washed up on the shore. Caspar kept to the sidewalk above the dune slops leading down to the beach instead of walking along the shore, just in case. Besides, he could run faster on concrete than he could on sand. It was a better workout, but he was in too much of a hurry to worry about exercise— which really made it obvious how much of a hurry he was in!

It was probably a good thing he had grabbed a windbreaker on his way out because with the sun going down and a breeze rolling in off the water, it was pretty cold; his legs, bare below his running shorts, were already turning red in the five minutes it took him to get from their house to big boardwalk that divided their private beach from the public beach.

Caspar clambered down the big, slippery rocks that were piled up around the support pillars of the boardwalk, sliding a few times and scraping one of his knees in his haste, but being too excited to care. Once he was under the boardwalk he started at a run towards the water, already pulling his backpack off and unzipping it without pausing or slowing down at all. He pulled out his towel and threw it down on the sand right at the water’s edge just in time to literally jump on it, emptying the contents out.

And then? Then he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The sun had finished setting by the time Caspar started to think he was waiting for nothing and he should just head back. It was getting cold, which definitely wasn’t helped by the fact that he was sitting on a cold towel on top of damp sand, and since it was still cloudy it was getting super dark…

Maybe he was too early? He always showed up before the weather got super nice, but it wasn’t like this…  _ Thing _ ran on a schedule. It wouldn’t have been the first time he showed up early. Two summers ago he spent a week, every night at sunset, sitting under the boardwalk and getting his ass wet while he watched the water for any sign of his…

_ Friend _ .

He was about to pack up and head home, hoping that this time he wouldn’t be waiting a whole week, when he spotted…  _ Something _ out in the water, and he perked up like his dog always did when she heard someone coming through the front door.

There was movement forty or fifty feet out, looking almost like a dolphin splashing around, which Caspar would have assumed was the case if it hadn’t been so close to the shore… And if he didn’t know better.

A head poked up out of the water, just high enough for a pair of eyes to scan the shoreline, and Caspar practically jumped to his feet while waving his arms to make himself as visible as possible. He hoped it was enough when the head disappeared back under the water, his heart skipping a couple of beats, and he wasn’t disappointed when a moment later the same head popped up, this time over the rocks that were piled up to keep the sand from eroding away into the ocean.

His heart skipped a couple  _ more _ beats when he got his first good look at Linhardt in almost a year, just like it always did.

Linhardt started to pull himself up and over the rocks, and Caspar surged forward to help him, arms sliding under Linhardt’s armpits and around his chest until he was basically hugging him as he pulled him out of the water and onto his towel, not caring that he was getting soaked and that was only going to make him colder.

“Finally,” Linhardt said, smoothing long emerald green hair back behind his ears as he looked up at Caspar from where he rested on his side, one elbow propping him up. “I was beginning to think you would never show up.”

“Hey, I’m early this year! It’s not even nice enough to be swimming yet! And you were late  _ last _ year!”

“How can I be late when we don’t even set a time?”

“I could say the same thing!”

Caspar tried to be annoyed, even jokingly, but he was too excited as he flopped down on the towel next to Linhardt so they were facing each other. Linhardt chuckled, which tapered off into a yawn as he folded his arm under his head to use as a pillow.

“We really should figure out a way to time this better,” Linhardt suggested. “That way, neither of us will get…  _ Overzealous _ .”

Caspar wanted to ask exactly how  _ overzealous _ Linhardt had been, wondering if he’d been so excited to see him that he’d shown up just as early as Caspar had last year, but he was so glad to see him he didn’t even want to, and there was plenty of time for that later besides. They had the whole summer, after all, until they both had to head back home, Caspar back to the city with his family and Linhardt back to… Wherever Linhardt went when he wasn’t hanging out near Caspar’s family beach house. Probably somewhere warm and sunny, like birds migrating south for the winter. He could definitely see Linhardt wanting to spend his time somewhere he could sun himself on a warm rock and take a long nap.

Caspar didn’t really care about the cold, but he could see why Linhardt would.

On account of him being half fish, and all.

It had all started when Caspar was 6 years old and his dad had first bought the beach house, saying they all needed somewhere to go and relax during the summer. 12 years down the line, Caspar was pretty sure by ‘relax’ he meant finding someplace he could basically pawn him off on his mother or the private lifeguards on their beach while he did whatever he did to relax, and his brother went off and did petty crime in town.

Not that Caspar cared, then or now. I mean, what kid wouldn’t want to spend their entire summer playing on a beach? He’d been more than happy to spend his time splashing around in the water making the lifeguards nervous while his mom read paperbacks and drank mimosas under a giant umbrella, waving at him every time she looked up.

She’d told him pretty early on to keep away from the boardwalk; the private beach ended on the other side of it and the public beach began, meaning there was no one to watch him, and the water was deeper and rougher under the boardwalk, and sometimes there were the kinds of older kids his brother liked to make friends with hanging out under there and doing stuff she didn’t want him getting involved with. But one day she got a phone call, and the lifeguards weren’t paying attention, and the beachball he was playing with got away from him and he chased it under the boardwalk. It would be fine if he just grabbed the ball and came right back, right?

It had rolled up to where his brother and some other kids were hanging out, and he smiled at him, not really noticing the way he got embarrassed by having his little brother run up to him while he was hanging out with his new friends, and Caspar was expecting him to hand his ball back to him when one of the other kids kicked it as hard as he could and sent it sailing into the water.

“Hey! What did you do that for?!” He stamped his foot in the sand and clenched his fists, but the older kids just laughed at him. He looked to his brother for help, but he looked away and completely ignored him, and he couldn’t stop himself from tearing up again as he squared his shoulders and tried to look tough. “I’m telling mom!”

“Christ, your brother’s a crybaby,” one of the older kids said, and the rest laughed along with him, including his brother, and Caspar turned and ran towards the water as they walked off to do whatever his mom was always yelling at his brother not to do when he hung out with his friends.

His ball was rolling around in the water, but Caspar stopped at the rocks that were lined up along the shore. He remembered what his mom had said about the water being deeper here, and even though he was a good swimmer he didn’t want to get in trouble. Instead he just sat down in front of the rocks and pulled his knees up to his chest, rubbing at the tears in his eyes.

“‘M not a crybaby,” he muttered even as he couldn’t stop sniffling. Stupid brother and his stupid friends. It wasn’t even like he cared about his dumb ball, it was just a stupid toy, he had a bunch more just like it back at the house! But that didn’t mean they weren’t jerks for kicking it away from him like that…

“Well, you are crying. And you’re very small. Unless ‘crybaby’ means something else.”

“I’m not small!”

Caspar blurted that out before he even knew who said that, whipping his head around before he realized the voice had come from in  _ front _ of him—

He whipped his head back around to see a boy peeking his head over the top of the rocks at him.

“Hey, who are you calling small?! You’re just as small as me!” Or, at least, Caspar was pretty sure he was; it was hard to tell when he was just a head and a pair of hands peeking up over the rocks.

The boy tilted his head like he was confused. He had pretty, long green hair and big, blue eyes, and he was so pale Caspar was worried about the fact that he didn’t look like he was wearing any sunscreen.

“Wow,” he said, blinking as he stared at him. He hadn’t noticed it at first because he was too busy being annoyed that he’d called him small, but… “You’re really pretty.”

The boy blinked back at him. “Thank you. I… like your hair. It’s the same colour as the sky.”

Caspar beamed widely at that, but before he could say anything else, the other boy looked back at the water and asked, “Is that yours?”

He pointed to the lost ball, which was already so far out Caspar wouldn’t have gone and gotten it even if his mom had been around, especially because the waves looked a lot bigger and rougher here than they did over where his mom was sitting.

“Yeah, my jerk brother’s big jerk friend kicked it and now I can’t get it,” he said. “It’s fine, I’ve got more at home, but—”

He didn’t finish what he was saying before his new friend disappeared behind the rocks. Caspar scrambled forward to see where he had gone, and all he saw was a shadowy shape in the water— 

It must have been the other boy swimming, but it looked pretty weird. He wasn’t kicking like Caspar had been taught when he was learning how to swim; he looked more like a fish, gliding under the water like he was flying instead of swimming! His head popped back up by the ball, and he grabbed it and swam back over, but not quite as cool-looking since he was holding the beach ball above his head at the same time

He tossed the ball up and over the rocks and Caspar had to scramble to catch it before it bounced away and he ended up with the exact same problem. He put it in his lap and folded his arms over it so the wind didn’t take it away as he watched the other boy pull himself back up over the rocks.

“You’re a really good swimmer,” Caspar said. “Do you live here?” He would probably be a way better swimmer if he lived so close to the ocean and could go swimming all the time!

The boy smiled at him. “You’re funny,” he said, which didn’t sound like an answer to his question, and then he yawned. “I’m tired now. Is it comfortable up there?”

“Uh— I guess?” It was sort of damp and the sand was sticking to Caspar’s shorts, but it was probably more comfortable than swimming around!

“Help me up.”

Caspar blinked. The boy was looking at him with one of his hands raised, the other clinging to the rocks. He hadn’t said ‘please’, but Caspar hadn’t really said ‘thank you’ for him swimming out to get his ball for him— it hadn’t seemed as important as telling him he thought he was a good swimmer. And even though it sounded kind of bossy, he was still smiling at him?

Caspar decided he didn’t really care and figured it was the least he could do, so he crawled forward and took the boy’s hand to help him up and out of the water and onto the sand.

“Thanks for getting my ball for me,” he said, even though it was kind of late, because he figured it was nice to say it anyway. “What’s your—”

He stopped in the middle of his question as he helped the boy onto the shore and realized why he hadn’t been kicking his legs when he was swimming.

He didn’t  _ have _ any.

Instead of legs, from the waist down he had a  _ tail _ . A really pretty tail, the same dark green colour as his hair with big shimmery scales and a big fin at the end that was kind of see-through but also looked kind of rainbow when he was flapping it like he was now.

“Linhardt.”

Caspar was so busy staring at his— his  _ tail _ that he almost missed what he said, and then when he realized what he said he had no idea what it meant, so he tilted his head in confusing and said, “Huh?”

“You were going to ask me what my name is, right? My name is Linhardt.”

_ Linhardt _ .

Caspar repeated that name in his head a few times so he would remember it, even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to have any problem remembering  _ any _ of this.

Linhardt started wringing out his hair, which gave Caspar something to look at instead of  _ his tail _ , because he was starting to worry it might be rude to just… Stare at it.

“What’s your name?”

“H-huh?” Okay, so maybe that wasn’t working either, because it took him another couple of seconds to realize Linhardt had even said something to him before he replied, “Caspar! My name’s Caspar.”

Was it okay to ask him why he had a tail? His mom had always told him it was rude to ask people questions like that, but… This was different, right? People didn’t have tails!

“Um, why do you…”

“Oh.” Linhardt didn’t even wait for him to finish asking the question. “I always forget that humans don’t know about us. I think you call us mermaids?”

“Mermaid…”

Caspar had seen mermaids in story books and cartoons, but his mom had told him they were just made up. But Linhardt had a  _ tail _ , and a  _ fin _ , so he couldn’t be lying, right? He didn’t think his mom would lie to him either, but maybe she just didn’t know, like Linhardt said?

“That’s so cool!” he said, because if people didn’t know, that meant he knew something no one else did! “Your tail is really pretty, too.”

“You really like telling me I’m pretty. Don’t you know any other compliments?” Linhardt said, but even though he was laughing at him, it didn’t feel like he was making fun of him. Or at least, it didn’t feel like he was being  _ mean _ . Caspar still felt embarrassed, though.

“I, uh—”

“Caspar! Caspar, where are you?”

He snapped his head around when he heard his mom yelling for him and saw her standing on the beach, looking for him out in the water.

“That’s my mom— I gotta go,” he said, turning back to Linhardt. “Are you staying here, too? Maybe we can play together later?”

He really hoped so. He really liked the idea of being friends with a mermaid, and Linhardt seemed really nice! And he was a good swimmer, so Caspar wouldn’t have to worry about swimming out too far…

“Hm. I’d like that…” Linhardt snapped his head around, too, even though Caspar hadn’t heard anything, but  _ he _ was looking at the water. “My father is calling for me, too. Maybe we can play together tomorrow? I’ll meet you here again.”

Caspar wanted to say that he wasn’t allowed to play under the board walk, but he was too embarrassed. And if Linhardt was a secret mermaid, they had to meet somewhere secret, right? So instead he just said, “Yeah, sure!”

Linhardt shuffled forward until he slipped back off the rocks and into the water, and he disappeared underneath it. Caspar watched his shadow swim away into the deep water where he  _ definitely _ couldn’t go until he couldn’t see him anymore; then, he got to his feet, clutching his beach ball, and ran to his mom.

“I’m here, mom!” he said, holding the ball over his head. “Jamie’s dumb friends kicked my ball so I had to go get it…”

“Caspar.”

The sound of Linhardt’s voice probably would have snapped him out of his thoughts anyway, but the feeling of Linhardt’s cold fingers being suddenly shoved up the back of his shirt  _ definitely _ snapped him out of it, and he jumped with a yelp.

“Linhardt!”

“What? You were drifting off into space.” Linhardt smiled at him and didn’t move his fingers at all, making Caspar shiver. “And besides, you make quite a good hand warmer.”

Caspar blinked once, then suddenly realized that if  _ he _ was cold in his shorts and a sweater, then Linhardt— who wasn’t wearing  _ anything at all _ — was probably  _ freezing _ !

The thought barely went through his head and he scrambled to pull off his sweater and throw it over Linhardt, who’s eyes went wide as he blinked.

“There! Now you shouldn’t be so cold,” he said triumphantly.

“Oh…”

Linhardt sat up so he could put his arms properly through the sleeves. He fumbled with the zipper for a moment but figured it out before Caspar could offer to help him with it.

Linhardt was taller than Caspar— or, well, longer? Did it really count as being taller if he couldn’t actually stand up? But Caspar was a lot broader than Linhardt, so he still swam in it— a joke that Caspar didn’t bother making out loud before he laughed at it, which made Linhardt raise an eyebrow at him.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” he said as he went back to lying on his side. Caspar could see his hair starting to soak the sweater, and the rest of him was probably doing that too since he had been in the water just a few minutes ago.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” Caspar said, flopping back down next to him on the towel before shooting back up suddenly. “Oh! I brought you those things you like!”

He reached for his backpack and unzipped it, dumping the contents out on the towel.

A small mountain of snack cakes and other store-bought sweets tumbled out, as many as he could fit in the bag. He watched Linhardt’s eyes widen at them, and he’d hardly given the bag a shake to make sure he’d gotten all of them out before he’d snatched one up, tearing it out of its packaging like it had done him personally wrong.

“Oh, these things are horrid…” Linhardt said even as he shoved half a cinnamon roll in his mouth at once. As he did so, Caspar caught a glimpse of his teeth— sharp, like a shark’s teeth, even though Linhardt’s tail looked more like one of those brightly coloured tropical fish like Bernadetta kept in her fish tank. Seeing them sent a shiver up his spine— or maybe that was just from the cold.

“Yeah? Doesn’t seem to be slowing you down,” Caspar said as he shoved the discarded wrapper back into his bag.

“Yes, well, sometimes one gets tired of eating fish all day.” At least, that was what Caspar was  _ pretty _ sure he said, but it was hard to tell since he had half a snack cake in his mouth while he was trying to say it. “Even these monstrosities are a welcome change.”

Caspar rolled his eyes at that and let Linhardt have his excuses, even though he knew full-well that he could have brought him a five-course meal and he would probably still be shoving Twinkies in his mouth about as fast as he could open the packaging.

He was surprised, then, when he didn’t hear the crinkle of another package being ripped open. And again when he felt something  _ thump _ against his shoulder, and he looked over and saw Linhardt’s head resting there.

“Hey,” he said, tilting his own head to rest it against Linhardt’s. “Don’t tell me you’re falling asleep already. You just got here!”

“Mm… Yes, well, I’ve been swimming all day, waiting for you. And you’re not making it easy, wrapping me up and feeding me like this… I might almost think you’re trying to spoil me.”

Caspar turned bright red at that and looked away immediately, hoping Linhardt didn’t see. The way Linhardt laughed made him think he  _ did _ see it, though. Ah, well. He was used to Linhardt teasing him by this point, and if it made Linhardt happy? He could put up with it.

“W-well… Sleep, if you want… Are you just gonna use me as a pillow the whole time?”

“It certainly sounds tempting…”

Caspar really didn’t want to admit how tempting it sounded to  _ him _ , too. Well, not quite as tempting as just hanging out with Linhardt while he was  _ awake _ , but it was embarrassing how many times he’d thought about waking up with Linhardt’s head nestled into his shoulder and his sleepy friend grumbling when he tried to get up, telling him to stay in bed for five more minutes…

(He was sixteen and he was pretty sure he was  _ supposed _ to be fantasizing about way more…  _ intense _ things than waking up in the same bed as his best friend, even if they did only get to see each other for a couple months of the year. Then again, all of his fantasies also involved Linhardt not on the beach, so maybe he’d just swapped intensity for impossibility.)

Linhardt definitely  _ looked _ like he was about to fall asleep. He had made himself right at home on Caspar’s shoulder, and from the little humming noise coming from the back of his throat, Caspar would have guessed he was  _ already _ asleep…

“Caspar?”

He was so absorbed in looking at Linhardt (which, now that he stopped to think about it for a second, was actually pretty creepy) that he didn’t even notice his mother coming down the beach until she called his name— and she was standing  _ right _ outside the boardwalk, looking like she thought it would fall on top of her or something if she walked underneath it.

“M-mom?”

Caspar froze up. Somehow, even after all this time, his family had never found out about Linhardt— although Caspar was pretty sure that was thanks to Linhardt more than anything. He always made up vague excuses about hanging out with friends when he went out (and he was  _ out _ of the house more than he was  _ in _ it), but as long as he didn’t get into trouble that his father had to keep bailing him out of like his brother did, they didn’t really seem to care where he was going or what he was doing…

But he  _ had _ run out of the house like he was on fire, ignoring his parents calling after him. Maybe not his brightest idea. He was pretty sure his father wouldn’t care about him running out like that, except to give him attitude about it later, but his mom? Of course she’d worry, and of course she’d come looking for him…

It wasn’t like he was  _ ashamed _ of Linhardt, obviously. It was more that he was pretty sure the existence of his entire species was supposed to be a secret. Linhardt had already gotten in trouble with his father for telling Caspar what he was when they were  _ 6 _ , and Caspar had kept it a secret all these years— if everyone else found out, he’d probably never be able to see Linhardt again—

“O-oh. You have… company.”

Fuck. Caspar legitimately stopped breathing, his head swimming in panic so much that it took him a good couple of seconds of sitting there with his mouth flapping wordlessly to realize his mother was definitely not freaking out as much as she should be. In fact, she was mostly just… Blushing?

Caspar looked over at Linhardt, and the first thing he saw was a long, bare pair of pale legs leading up to where his sweater was…  _ Struggling _ to keep him— covered.

Of course, Caspar was too distracted by the fact that he was seeing Linhardt  _ with legs _ to think about what was underneath the sweater he’d lent to him. It did make sense why his mother was blushing, though…

“Hello. You’re Caspar’s mother? Charmed.”

Linhardt was leaning around him, although he was still mostly hidden behind him. Caspar was too dumbstruck to think of what else to say, so it was a good thing Linhardt wasn’t feeling shy. (Not that he’d ever thought for even a second that he would  _ be _ shy, not with how blunt he always was…)

“Caspar.” His mother was smiling, but it was a tense, fake sort of smile, and it probably would have been funny to see her getting so embarrassed if Caspar hadn’t realized  _ exactly _ what she thought this looked like… “You should have told us you were going to meet… a  _ friend _ . I was worried when you just ran off like that!”

“Uh… Sorry, mom, I guess I was just… Excited?” He cringed a little with every word that came out of his own mouth, but it was too late! They were already out there.

“Apologies for stealing him away so suddenly.”

Caspar knew he was fucked. He had rushed out of the house like he was being chased, and his mother had just found him under the board walk with an extremely good-looking half-naked boy— a half-naked boy whose  _ only  _ clothing was the sweater she’d seen Caspar wearing during their entire drive up to the beach house.

And it really didn’t help that Linhardt was still leaning against him…

He almost wanted to pull away, tell her it wasn’t what it looked like (although he had absolutely no idea how he would even  _ begin _ to explain his way out of this situation), but another part of him knew that there would only be  _ more _ questions if he tried to deny it… And questions might lead to her finding out something she shouldn’t…

Caspar wasn’t good at thinking about these kinds of things; he preferred to  _ do _ things rather than sit around thinking about them. 

Thankfully Linhardt made the choice for him when he reached down, took his hand, and laced their fingers together.

Caspar’s heart felt like it stopped,  _ again _ , and all of this  _ definitely _ wasn’t good for him, and he knew he was for sure blushing now. And now that he’d had a second to adjust to the fact that Linhardt  _ had legs _ , he was taking way more notice of the fact that he was extremely underdressed.

“I… Guess it’s alright.” Caspar’s mom didn’t seem to know how to react to Linhardt any better than Caspar did. “I, uh… Well, now that I know you’re okay, I’m heading back. Dinner’s almost ready. You really should come home and get out of this cold; I have no idea how you could be outside in something like that in this weather!”

Well, at least her mom instincts were stronger than the part that probably wanted to have a serious talk with him about the fact that he was hanging out at the part of the beach known for kids doing drugs and doing other illegal things, with a half-naked guy…

“You’re welcome to join us…?”

“Linhardt. And I’d love to.”

Caspar whipped his head in Linhardt’s direction. Everything was happening very,  _ very _ fast and he really didn’t know how to deal with it, and it was pretty frustrating to look at Linhardt and see the usual serene calm he always had.

Then again, this was the guy who had jumped right out of the water and told him mermaids exist when they were 6, so he probably should have expected something like this the second his mom walked up…

“Great! I’ll meet you boys back at the house then. Don’t take too long!”

Caspar wondered whether his mother had gotten completely distracted by inviting them to dinner, but nope, the look she shot him as she turned to walk back towards the house told him that was  _ not _ the case. He was definitely going to be having a  _ talk _ with her later…

Great. Perfect way to start out his summer. Getting grounded.

He was surprised that his mom just walked off and left the two of them alone, but he was glad for it, because he had a lot of questions that he couldn’t exactly ask in front of his mother or anyone else—

Starting with “Linhardt, what the  _ fuck _ ?”

He waited until his mom was out of earshot, but hissed it anyway. Linhardt looked at him with his head tilted to one side and a small smile.

“Is something wrong, Caspar?”

“Uh, just the fact that you have  _ legs _ and you just said you’d come over to my  _ family’s house for dinner _ ? I mean, the legs are more important, but—”

“Oh, this?” Linhardt stretched out those long pale legs, wiggling his toes. “Just something I learned when I was bored. I was going to wait to show you, but the situation sort of demanded it…”

“So you, what, just… Decided to learn how to  _ walk _ one day? Because you were bored?”

“Hm, well, I may need your help with that part… I haven’t had much chance to practice… But it seemed like the most obvious way to get to spend more time with you.”

He dropped that so casually that it took Caspar a second to realize it. At least he was already blushing, he was pretty sure, so Linhardt wouldn’t see the way he turned beet red at  _ that _ …

“I also toyed with the idea of turning you into one of us temporarily, but that will take me a bit more time to figure out… So this will have to work in the meantime.”

“Wait… You can  _ do _ that?” All of a sudden his embarrassment was replaced by curiosity. (Not like he’d imagined that exact thing almost as often as he thought about waking up to Linhardt in his bed, or anything.)

“We can talk about it later,” Linhardt said, firmly. “For now, I believe your mother wants me to come to dinner?”

“R-right! I still can’t believe you accepted…” Caspar shook his head as he got to his feet, offering Linhardt his hand.

Linhardt accepted and Caspar pulled him to his feet— and then caught him when he promptly fell directly into his arms.

“Oop! This feels… More awkward than I was expecting,” Linhardt said. Caspar looked down to see his legs shaking, but after a few seconds he seemed to find his balance, even though he kept leaning on Caspar.

“Are you sure you’re gonna be able to make it all the way to my house? Especially, uh… Without any pants?”

(He was glad he’d thought to give Linhardt his sweater… He could only imagine how much worse it would have been if his mom had shown up and he was  _ completely _ naked…)

“I’ll manage,” Linhardt said firmly. “I certainly won’t miss my first chance to meet your family. I want to see if your brother is really as annoying as you say.”

Well, that almost could have been a moment, but Linhardt was Linhardt. Good thing Caspar liked him that way… And was pretty sure he couldn’t handle another random romantic moment like that.

He had figured out he had a crush on Linhardt a long time ago, but it was a hard thing to deal with when you knew you’d only ever be able to see each other a few months of the year…

(Another thing for him to think about, really.)

Linhardt put his arm around Caspar’s shoulders, and Caspar put his arm around Linhardt’s waist, helping him take his first few steps with  _ legs _ . (And it only slightly annoyed him that yes, it apparently  _ did  _ count, because Linhardt was  _ definitely _ taller than him.)

“So,” he said as they came out from under the board walk and onto the beach— the first time, Caspar realized, that he had ever seen Linhardt on land anywhere but beneath the board walk, and it made his heart swell up in a way he couldn’t even really describe. “What was that you said about turning me into a mermaid?”

“Later, Caspar. Later.”


End file.
